


Destcember 2018 | Ficlets

by smalltownstars



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Destcember, Destcember 2018, F/M, Gen, Heavily Interpreted Speaker, Implied Relationships, Like All These Ficlets Will Have A Lot of Headcanons So Just Be Prepared To Roll With It, Multi, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 14:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16855921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalltownstars/pseuds/smalltownstars
Summary: Prompt fills for #DESTCEMBER2018.





	1. Guardian & Ghost

I didn’t hold out much hope for the rewards I’d reap from my self-mandated directive to scour the surface of Mars, a directive that had thus far been overwhelmingly more trouble than it was worth. Human remains--even bones--had a notoriously short and dismal shelf life on that planet. Thus, I expected debris, ideally at least a small portion of it useful. I expected broken Vex tech, and to avoid the occasional battalion of backwater Cabal mining platoons diligently trying to out-march impending dehydration. I expected to find many, many consistencies of sand in every crevice of my shell for weeks to come. 

On all three predictions, I was (as usual) miserably right, and I had but one more destination to investigate before I made good on my several-times-sworn promise to leave this derelict desert planet and never return. But after miles of exhaustively observant wandering, I came upon what at first looked to me like more defunct technological debris. In keeping with the low expectations this planet had given me, I was inclined to declare the thing another empty husk of some former cutting-edge glory of innovation and call my expedition concluded. Like many a Ghost before me, I thought, I would find no Guardian here. Then I picked up the readings. 

I realized in shock that what I’d believed to be a large, bent mass of scrap metal was a makeshift above-ground tomb. Unmarked, or at least whatever markings it’d once had were weathered away by centuries of dust storms, it appeared to have been fashioned from the decontamination unit of a pre-Golden Age vessel. The relevant tech once attached to it had been stripped, which was perhaps most fortunate for me; no doubt the tomb and its contents would’ve been seized and promptly desecrated in the name of the Cabal Empire if they deemed any part of it valuable. 

Though I noted no rust buildup on the unit’s door, it was rickety and sealed tightly all the same, making it a slow task for me to unscramble the security code keeping it shut. Locks rattled and popped in warning and finally, almost too fast for me to remove myself from its trajectory, the door flew open on its hinge and released a cloud of dust. When the dust cleared, I could make out the figure of a dry, unexpectedly well-preserved skeleton in a charred, entropied space suit. In this moment, I experienced the first instance of a question I would unspokenly wonder several times throughout my Guardian’s life: Who were you?

With the agitation of newfound excitement jittering my chassis, I set to work restoring life to this mysterious cadaver until it once again took a healthy shape and jolted forward in shock as the Light surged through its body. 

Every Ghost remembers their Guardian’s first words; mine’s were “Agh! Damn it! My...head…” 

Before me, clutching her temples with long-fingered hands, grimaced a gaunt, olive-skinned, severe-looking woman with a tousled crown of short, somewhat lifeless golden hair. She had a lean, elegant arch to her neck and shoulders; her frame was narrow, with long limbs and sharp-looking joints. From between her hands, she stared at me as though I was the culprit of her sudden anguish. 

“What manner of construct is this? Which organization sent this probe?!” She spoke through me, at first thinking I was a surveillance device. Her voice was rather low and mean. I liked it; I’d always dreaded choosing a Guardian too high in levels of spirited optimism. 

I’d never prepared a resurrection briefing that seemed satisfactory to my own ears, so I spoke freely. “I’m a Ghost,” I said. “And your confusion is understandable, but I’m not here to hurt you. We need to find somewhere--” 

“So you’re a rescue AI? Doesn’t matter. I’ll figure out what you are for myself.” She looked around, then pulled herself upright from the tomb. “Where am I?” 

“Mars. Utopia Basin.” 

“Ah.” There was a creak in her voice; her attempt to pretend she knew what that meant was betrayed. Brow furrowing nervously now, she asked, “How long have I been here?” 

I’d always heard that was the question that caused the most trouble with new Guardians. “It’s difficult to estimate, but likely over a thousand years.” I saw her eyes glaze over, as though she could only comprehend so much of that before it started to short her out, and I tried hastily to redirect things. “My name is Aquila,” I offered. “What should I call you?” 

Bewilderedly, she blinked, then shook her head, stubbornly compartmentalizing. “Give me some time to catch my bearings, I’ll figure it out.” Gripping the sides of the decontamination unit, she stood with a single-minded air that made me oddly proud for it having been so early. As though on instinct, she reached for the empty gun holster at her back and made a strange, displeased face when her fingers only grasped air. She looked at me skeptically. “You said you needed to take me somewhere?” 

“The Last City on Earth. It’s...a bit of a walk.” It was a bad joke; I couldn’t even chuckle at it for myself. I cleared my nonexistent throat. “But first, it’s more pertinent that we find a way off this planet. It’s hostile, and that’s without addressing what the locals are like.” 

“And I suppose there’s no chance you have some secret mass-annihilation protocol stored away somewhere in your tiny processors?” 

“Not entirely, but you do,” I answered, hope springing back into my voice. “You’re also extraordinarily difficult to kill.” 

A dry laugh escaped her, a disbelieving one. I think she thought I was being facetious. “Well, in that case, what are we waiting for?”


	2. The Last City

As the Leviathan’s enormous maw loomed in the distance, having become the centaur’s new horizon for whatever indefinite time it required to devour all the soil it had to offer, the Seventh Company’s science unit marched on. They were an unusual sight: forty Cabal legionaries, mostly recent defectors from the ranks of the Legion, an impressive handful of decorated centurions, and at their forefront, a newly-appointed Primus with the insignia of a Shadow on her armor--a Primus who, by the shape of her skull and the smallness of her stature, clearly did not call Torobatl her motherland. 

Flanking the Awoken woman by a respectful half-meter or so were her two personally-chosen lieutenants: one a heavily-scarred phalanx with his shield strapped pragmatically to his back like a shell, and the other a young but solemn-looking colossus who’d adorned the tips of her tusks with golden caps. Their names were Shulur and Tlu’uam, and unable to pronounce the phonetics of her name, they referred to their commander as Itha’aurus. 

“I hate this planet,” Tlu’uam grumbled as the electrified smell of radiolaria pierced the air. 

“Lucky for you, then, that the Leviathan seems to love it,” the Primus countered with a soft chuckle, and her Ulurant held the broad, sloppy accenting of one who’d learned it years ago from listening to the common Sand Eaters on Mars. “When we’re sufficiently past the Vex structures in this region, we’ll take rest.” 

“There will be Vex structures in the next region, too,” Shulur pointed out, deliberate--though not hostile--impertinence in his tone. 

Itha’aurus raised an amused eyebrow. “I ought to start referring to the two of you as my fireteam. We are beginning to sound like one.”

“So long as you don’t try to make us do dances, ser.” 

The Light-bearer struggled not to laugh; it would have made for a terrible way to alert nearby enemies to the Cabal in their territory. “It is a battlefield tradition among my people, Lieutenant. The Emperor seems to have great investment in cultural exchange as a staple of the new Empire.” 

Her two lieutenants exchanged appalled glances before realizing that she wasn’t being serious; two pairs of heavily armored shoulders relaxed dramatically in unison at that.  


Inquiringly, Tlu’uam ventured a new question. “Is it true, Primus, that your people are all confined within one settlement?” 

“Raised in the Legion, and yet she still speaks out of turn like a civilian whelp,” Shulur muttered, seeming to brace himself preemptively for their commander to reprimand her. Instead, Itha’aurus tilted her head thoughtfully. 

“The ones I claim as mine do,” she answered. “There are, of course, the others in the Asteroid Belt. They do not consider me one of their own, and I extend the same sympathies, in turn, to them. But the ones born on Earth, of either subspecies, usually go their whole lives without seeing the other side of the City walls, unless the Light finds them after death.”  


“Then it is a gloryless existence, not unlike what Ghaul said?” Shulur looked like he might burst an artery from mere proximity to such talk, and Tlu’uam stuck out her tusks proudly. “I know the bounds of my own Loyalty and they’re unwavering; I’m not afraid to question from within them,” she declared. 

The Primus was used to Cabal soldiers finding sudden candor in the presence of an alien commander, be it for defiance or for familiarity, and she’d learned to consider either as, oddly enough, an honor of sort. “It’s an existence that begets continued existence,” she answered. “We are something of an endangered species, and moreover, there is no force in the universe that considers us significant enough to aid willingly. Although our significance never seems to be called into question when it’s decided we should be annihilated. We live however we must to continue living.” 

“For your Traveler?” 

The question gave the Primus pause. “For what the Traveler represents,” she finally said. “A time when we were an unconquered people. How far we’ve come from near-extinction, time and again. The history of everything we are, packed into a single valley under a god we thought was dead, and the fact that it endured despite the odds. Dancing in the middle of a war zone, finding enough happiness in destitution to push through to the next happy moment.” She paused for a beat, then, “Really, it’s all for the City, the people. The Traveler is just the mirror we see it all reflect off of.”


	3. Living Without the Light

_Caphziel,_

Dry leaves crunch beneath six pairs of brisk, tentative footsteps. Two Guardians--a Warlock and a Titan--lead, with four of their Lightless comrades clustered behind them. All are armed; there is a nervousness amid the Lightless, and a cold aura shared between the Warlock and Titan, who haven’t spoken a word to each other since departure. The muffled animosity is a surprise to no one; if anything, the Legion’s invasion had made Sorensen and Sooalo practically civil.

_I’m recording this log before setting out on another pilgrimage. This’ll be the fourth refugee fireteam I take to the Dark Forest. Maybe the fifth. I haven’t had much time to keep count. I spend my days coordinating efforts with an outsider named Hawthorne, and...well, doing this. Pretending to talk to you. If you were here, my friend, it’d please you to know that I’ve enlisted Lieutenant Sooalo’s help, what with the Fallen digging their claws even tighter into the area now that they’ve figured out we wanted it first. The odds of getting their Light back haven’t been good for most of the survivors. The way they look at me when the Shard doesn’t respond to them is--Ah, Traveler, this is how you felt, wasn’t it? Shit…_

The group reaches the edge of the forest. One of the Lightless’s Ghosts picks up a trace of nearby Fallen chatter and for a split second, barely-contained panic ripples through the four of them. The Warlock’s spine stiffens, frustration coloring her expression, and she starts to round on them to hiss a warning of what will come if they give away their position; Sooalo claps a hand on her shoulder, stilling her. Orphia, he reminds her, they already know; most of them have seen at least one friend killed trying to make it even half this far. More still tried to make the pilgrimage on their own, only for their skulls to become a warding fixture atop a House Dusk foothold. Don’t deny them the right to feel their own fear.

_I wish I’d understood the way you went about what you did when you were still here, when it mattered. I never recognized the grace it took to be in your position until you weren’t around to fill it anymore. Now, I feel the loss of it everywhere, and whether they realize it or not, so does everyone else. There’s an empty figurehead-shaped space in this picture that no one acknowledges. It’s like watching someone lose a limb, only to forget immediately that they ever had it to begin with. No one is rallying to your rescue the way they would for a field commander or a champion, probably because all our commanders and champions are gone. Raosha’s searching for the Vanguard, who are more than likely dead. Saladin is nowhere to be found. Theano’s lost her mind. I’m trying to be the beacon you were. I’m not cut out for it. I’m not the right person for any of this._

They approach the Shard, and the two guides took guard on either side of it as the first of the four Lightless stepped forward, releasing their battered Ghost to examine the broken structure of flickering divine carapace. In a brilliant showering of Arc, one all of them can feel, the Light surges into the Guardian’s body like water to a vessel. They emerge from it looking renewed, hopeful for the first time in weeks. Sooalo smiles. Orphia tightens her grip on her scout rifle, eyes darting from one side of the clearing to the other. Nothing that big ever happens in a Dead Zone without drawing attention.

_If Raosha really does succeed, I will follow him to the end that I find you. That is the guidance you would have given--or at least I think it sounds kind of like something you’d endorse, to grit your teeth and forge armistice with old rivals if you find your goals lead to the same place--and frankly, that’s all I have. I think it’s all I ever had. The truth is, Caphziel, I never felt a connection to the Traveler. I never learned to love the slow, stagnant suffocation of living within the City. I fell in love with the way you loved them, and that is what I fought for. Any time I’ve ever fought for anything, beyond merely living another day, it was for you._

The Shard does not respond to the next Lightless, or the next after. One weeps, and Sooalo offers them a place in his shoulder to cry into. The other looks hollow, distant; she moves to the edge of the group, turns her back, and silently hugs her Ghost to her face. Orphia wants to follow her, but she fears relinquishing her vigilance. It would be a far greater disservice to that Guardian to let them all be ambushed.

_That’s why I continue spending my rare minutes of downtime spilling my guts into salvaged recording tech. I have to believe that whatever happened to you, you survived it. That you’ll keep surviving it. I don’t...I don’t know what’ll happen...what will…_

The fourth Guardian finds his Light. Good, Orphia thinks, that’s more than enough to defend the group if we run into trouble on the journey back. It’s a bright side, but a deeply, deeply empty one. She signals to Sooalo and the others to form up, Lightless standing safely between Light-restored. Two more, if only just two, is still more than they had. She’d use that to force herself not to remember the faces of the ones the Shards left behind.

_I...I have to head out, Sooalo’s nagging my comm. When I’m back, I guess I’ll tell you how it went. [PAUSE] I miss you, Caphziel. I won’t stop looking for you._


End file.
